For Christmas last year, my then 5 year old wanted all things paleontology. And Lego. We opted for the former since we knew she had lots of Lego sets coming. We got her a great dig-your-own-fossil kit from National Geographic called the “Mega Fossil Mine Dig Kit“.
She’s done similar kits before, and loved them, but this kit really stood out for us for one reason: real fossils. If you aren’t familiar with these kits, they have small fossils embedded in a big plaster brick. It comes with a brush and digging tool and require lots of elbow grease. Similar kits we’ve tried had plastic replicas or plastic bones that can be put together. Those were fun as well, and she always enjoys getting messy, but something about digging actual fossils out of the plaster really excited her.
It took several evenings to dig out all the fossils, and each night, she would wash off her finds and then show them off to everyone. Once she finished, she set up a little museum and walked us around the exhibits. The kit came with a book about fossils, which we read with her, so she was able to tell us all about them.
The only downside to the kit is that the plaster is pretty solid, and she would get worn out scraping and brushing. It took a long time until we hit the first fossil, and she almost lost interest. I helped her get going, and once we unearthed our first find, she was hooked. Still, we had to take turns digging. Kids with more arm strength shouldn’t run into that problem. We’ve tried two other kits. One was very brittle and she demolished it readily. The other is even more solid and she eventually gave up on it. We’ll bring it back out this summer and try again. Oh, also, if you aren’t careful, you can get plaster dust everywhere. We set the brick in a cookie sheet to contain it.
By far, her favorite find was the coprolite, a.k.a. dinosaur poo. You can’t imagine the glee in her voice when she showed everyone her poo. We’ll have to turn it into a necklace. Maybe a good gift idea for next year, though she already wants a chewy toy necklace, so maybe that’s not such a good idea. In any case, this dig kit was a huge hit and helped keep her excited about paleontology. It has now surpassed “face painter” as her longest running “what I want to be when I grow up”.